THE Janes Defence Weekly said all parties agreed that the LTTE as a conventional fighting force has now become defunct. The magazine quoted UN spokesman Gordon Weiss as saying, without Prabhakaran there is no LTTE.
The piece written by the magazine’s Asia Pacific Editor, Trefor Moss in its latest issue of May 27 as the headline of the issue said, the defeat of the LTTE began with the formal abandonment of a Norwegian-brokered truce at the start of 2008 by President Mahinda Rajapaksa.
It declared that the Sri Lanka Army has defeated the Tamil Tigers ending 26 years of civil war.
Quoting Ahilan Kadirgamar, the spokesman for the Sri Lanka Democratic Forum the magazine reported him as saying that the LTTE has steadily alienated itself from the local Tamil population through its heavy handed tactics, which ranged from extortion to the forced recruitment of children.
But Ahilan kadirgamar said, however the separate state concept for the Tamils remained highly popular among expatriate Tamils, outside Sri Lanka.
The United Nations spokesman in Sri Lanka Gordon Weiss told the magazine there is a real chance for lasting peace on the island now. Following are some excerpts from the article: The Sri Lankan government has declared victory in its 26 year war against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).
President Mahinda Rajapaksa formally announced that the Armed Forces had been able to liberate the entire country from the clutches of terrorists on May 19 and confirmed that the remainder of the LTTE forces had been destroyed on a narrow strip of beach near Mullaitivu in Sri Lanka’s North East the previous day.
General Sarath Fonseka, the Sri Lankan Army Chief then announced that the leader of the LTTE Velupillai Prabhakaran , had been killed, along with many of the rebel groups other senior figures.
On May 21 a military spokesman said that Prabhakaran’s body had been properly identified and cremated. The Ministry of Defence also said that the Army’s 53 and 58 divisions which had converged on the last pockets of resistance had counted the bodies of 350 LTTE fighters on the battlefield.
The UN’s spokesman in Sri Lanka, Gordon Weiss, told Janes that the country’s long war was very clearly over. It was now clear the senior leadership was quickly killed and it was all over after that. Weiss said the priority was now to get significant quantities of aid to the estimated 200,000 people displaced by the fighting. Weiss told Janes without Prabhakaran there is no LTTE. (Courtesy: Daily News)
